FerrisBueller Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Indiana Jones ... Ferris Bueller ... James T. Kirk ... Harry Potter ... Freddy Krueger ... Sam Witwicky? This summer has certainly seen it's fair share of iconic characters returning to the big screen, most notably in Star Trek and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. And next year we'll see new incarnations of Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street and the titular Alice in Wonderland. More often, though, it seems that memorable characters have been crowded off the stage in favor of interchangeable "types" rotating through a stock collection of cliches. The robots were better defined in Terminator: Salvation and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen than the people. Where have all the great characters created expressly for the screen gone?

True, most of the great movie characters of the past sprang either from real life or the fertile imagination of novelists. Yet Charles Foster Kane, J.J. Gittes, Travis Bickle, Rocky Balboa, Luke Skywalker, Indiana Jones, and Ferris Bueller were all original characters, even if they were influenced by various literary works. We still see larger-than-life characters that emerge fully-formed from the pages of a novel, like Harry Potter. And independent films are filled with indelible portraits of an incredible range of realistic characters. Why, then, have so few distinctive original characters entered into our popular consciousness from Hollywood studio productions in recent years?

Are Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Bruno the best we can hope for? Why can't we remember any other character's name from this year's crop of popular titles? Are event movies driving memorable characters from the screen in favor of CGI and action sequences? Are great original characters -- not based on a pre-existing property -- gone for good?

We always attribute Ferris Bueller's ingenuity and over-the-top fame to the magic of cinema. Anything can happen in Hollywood -- like a skinny little guy becoming the '80s mecca of luck and popularity. But what if there is more to it than that? What if he doesn't even exist inside John Hughes' Chicago?

Torontoist has a little column called Televisualist, which picks out notable TV listings for the week. When talking about Monday night's screening of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, writer Christopher Bird suggests that Ferris is nothing more than a figment of Cameron's imagination, a la Fight Club:

POSIT: Ferris Bueller does not, as such, exist; the movie is actually about Cameron's day off and his unresolved crush on his best friend Sloane, and the parts where Cameron is not onscreen are merely the products of his imagination as Ferris, the perfect human being, does all the things Cameron could not or never do, until Cameron snaps and decides to live his life for himself.

And as Bird notes, when Cameron decides to live his own life, Ferris' luck runs out. This isn't Bird's own theory, mind you, it's been around for some time -- spreading through the internet like an unwanted virus. But what do you think? Is Ferris nothing more than a less jaded version of the narrator's Tyler Durden? Or are people just out to ruin one of the greatest teen comedies of all time?

Some of cinema's most iconic shots of Chicago appear in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and the film is certainly Matthew Broderick's most iconic role. So, it's hard to watch the actor in the Chicago-set Diminished Capacity and not ask yourself, "is this what's happened to Ferris?" He is now relatively passive, paunchy and pitiful in the role of Cooper, a newspaper editor who has recently suffered a mildly debilitating concussion. And the character could be classified as yet another sad sack, one of three such parts he can be seen playing at present (Then She Found Me opened in April and is still in theaters; Finding Amanda debuted last week).

But is it fair that we most associate Broderick with Ferris, thereby continuing our disappointment in seeing him play one nebbish nobody after another? Couldn't we redirect our memories and accept that Broderick's modern roles are more like grown-up versions of Eugene Jerome, of Neil Simon's plays Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues, who he portrayed on Broadway as well as in the film adaptation of Biloxi? Were Eugene not the fictional incarnation of Simon and had he not therefore become a famous writer (and were he not from an earlier time period), the character surely could have gone on to be the pathetic teacher of Election or Then She Found Me or the absentminded editor of Diminished Capacity.

John Hughes is a major hero of mine. I can't overstate the impact his movies had on me growing up, and he is a major influence on and inspiration to me now. As I mentioned in my National Lampoon's Vacation post today, there simply wasn't a better writer of film comedy in the 1980s. As far as his "teenager movies" go, 1986's Ferris Bueller's Day Off might just be his masterpiece. So it is with much apprehension that I report the following news -- there may be a sequel on the way. A completed script is being shopped around Hollywood, and Steve Spears at Stuck in the 80s has read it. So why am I not more excited? The reclusive Mr. Hughes had nothing to do with it. It was written by an Arizona-based screenwriter named Rick Rapier.

Titled Ferris Bueller 2: Another Day Off, the proposed sequel takes place on the eve of Bueller's fortieth birthday. Spears, a major Hughes enthusiast, calls Rapier's script "a blast. I read it in a single afternoon and was impressed with the care Rapier took with the original story and characters. The story has the same feel, humor and pace as the 1986 movie, which should please hard-core Ferris fans." The storyline finds Ferris 20 years older and living off a hugely successful self-help career, a la Tony Robbins. His best friend Cameron (played in '86 by Alan Ruck) manages the business. Turning 40 shakes Ferris up, and he decides to take the day off, "sending Cameron, his business associates and family into a frenzy." In addition to Ferris and Cameron, most of the supporting characters are in the script. Sloane Peterson (played in '86 by Mia Sara) is now "a Hollywood star going through a rough marriage." Ferris' sister Jeannie (Jennifer Grey) is now married to the guy from the police station (Charlie Sheen). Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) doesn't work for the school anymore, but has devoted his life to getting revenge on Ferris (What's he going to do at this point, murder him?). Even Ben Stein's character is in there, now working at an airline.

Rapier wants all the original actors to return, and he wants John Hughes to direct. I think the odds of that happening are mighty slim. For starters, Hughes has never directed a script he didn't write, and I strongly doubt he'd start by helming some random dude's take on one of his most beloved characters. In addition, Hughes hasn't directed a film since 1991's Curly Sue (the only bad film the man directed). Nobody wants Hughes to return more than me, but if a Bueller sequel was to be his comeback film, wouldn't he write it himself? I've been hearing rumors of a Ferris sequel for years (along with talk of sequels for Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink...), and I had always heard Matthew Broderick was down for it -- if Hughes wrote and directed. So where does that leave Rapier's script? I sure hope we're not going to see some direct-to-video craptacular with Charlie Schlatter being pursued by Richard Riehle. Anybody remember this?

The comedy villain is one of the trickiest characters to pull off. Too often, the villain's scenes are there simply to further the "plot," which, in a lot of comedies, is pretty inconsequential. If a comedy even has a true villain, and many don't, scenes focusing on him or her usually drain the movie of life and make the audience eager to get back to the laughs. But a smart comedy creates a villain every bit as funny as the hero(es). Below are my favorite movie slimeballs, in order of release date. I'd love to hear some of yours.

John Vernon as Dean Vernon Wormer in National Lampoon's Animal House

One of the best traits for a comedy villain to have is that he or she is an "Enemy of Fun." You've met people like this. They hate fun. They hate people who have fun. Dean Wormer is a perfect example. In fact, unlike the other bad guys on this list, you can't imagine Wormer ever having had fun at any point in his life. Smileless, humorless, joyless...but hilarious. The crusty, bitter dean is almost a requirement for college movies, and you can feel Wormer's influence in every flick of its type released since. You certainly wouldn't have Dean Pritchard in Old School without Wormer. Animal House is a movie brimming over with jerks, Doug Neidermeyer would have made a perfectly good choice here, too -- frat guys always make great villains. But you've got to have some sympathy for that dude-- he got killed in Vietnam by his own troops.

Best Line: "The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me."

Ted Knight as Judge Smails in Caddyshack

Stopping just short of actually chewing on pieces of scenery, Knight's work in Caddyshack is a masterpiece of taking it over the top. A master of the slow burn, the man is made of simmering anger and rage. Knight more than holds his own against three incredible comedians: Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield, and Chevy Chase in his prime. In a lesser movie, Judge Smails would be a generic authority figure, enabling the three comedy stars to do their riffs around him and act out against him. But Knight's Judge is a worthy opponent, and manages to grab just as many laughs as the goofballs. Every bit as influential as Dean Wormer, you can draw a straight line from Judge Smails to say, Shooter McGavin.

Best Line: "I've sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn't want to do it. I felt I owed it to them."

Every Sunday night, when it gets to be a certain time, I sit down at my computer and try to come up with a Monday Morning Poll. Mind you, this is not easy. What are people talking about? What do people want to talk about? How am I still hungry? Those three questions probably cycle through my mind a good hundred times before I finally settle on a topic ... and a late night snack.

This week I was stumped. Luckily, a good friend was over at my apartment and, after reading my Pee-Wee Herman returns post, he began to contemplate which of his favorite movie characters he would like to see back on the big screen. The thing about Pee-Wee is he's a great character around whom a story is built. These days, it's usually the opposite.

Now, I'm not necessary talking sequel here -- this is strictly character. After talking with my friend, we agreed Ferris Bueller would be a great character to see return after all these years. Or how about The Dude? And I've always wanted to see Pumpkin and Honey Bunny from Pulp Fiction in their own warped romantic comedy.

So, I ask you: Who are some of your favorite movie characters? And, which ones would you like to see return to the big screen?